Not Dead PerSay
by i-rocketh
Summary: Charlie finds one of the island’s more bazaar secrets that could not only effect him but the rest of the castaways.
1. Chapter 1

Not Dead Per Say (Charlie) PG

Disclaimer: Marg no own Lost. Jane no own Lost. Tarzan no own Lost.

Warning: Lots of spoilers up to the last of the third season, and probably lots of violence, maybe a little C/C.

Author's note: This is my first full fic (I have a short one called "The Walk" floating around) so feel free to give criticism.

Chapter I

It felt like someone had scooped out his brains, stuck them in a blender mixed them for hours before placing them back in his head. Not even the headaches he went through during his withdrawals were this bad. He opened his eyes. "That was bad idea!" He thought to himself. The burning in his eyes maid him wonder if he had ever opened them before. He blinked a few times to make the pain go away.

While doing this he searched though his hazy memories to see if he could remember what he was doing. "I swam down to the underwater hatch and was captured and tortured by those hot girls then Des showed up." He went over the rest of the events before waking up in this… well what ever it was. One thing kept him baffled, he had died hadn't he? Yeah, unless his memories were way out of whack (a possibility he wasn't rejecting) he had drowned. He distinctly recalled the water filling his lungs while he prayed that if God was out there that He would forgive his uncountable sins. So why was he alive now?

Deciding that his eyes had adjusted enough he stopped blinking. "Not another one!" He declared as he saw that he was in a hatch. The Cosmos as stated a sign on the other side of the room. He checked out the rest of the room, there was a large table filled with sciencey looking stuff in the center with cabinets lining two walls. To his right were four doors. He leaned forward trying to see what was on the wall he was seated against and his face collided with an invisible barrier.

For the first time he looked at himself. He was half standing half setting on an awkwardly shaped "chair". His hands were restricted by a thin strap. From the fact that he couldn't move his feet he concluded that they were bound as well. "Perfect, not only am I in a hatch when I should be dead, I'm a prisoner too." He thought. Before he had even finished thinking, he heard the door opening.

Yes I will leave you hanging there and there is nothing you can do about it!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter II

Charlie whipped his head around to look at the now opening door. "Which "Other" will it be this time?" "What new sort of extricating pain can they put me in this time?" "Maybe the people from the ship are already here and killed everybody else while I was taking my nap and are coming here to finish me too" The thoughts fired off in rapid secession.

Then as his visions of seeing another Ethan, hot torture woman, or other monster shattered in to nothing. A girl who couldn't be older then fourteen or fifteen walked though the door. Actually "danced though the door" would have been a better way to describe it. She had headphones on her jet black crudely-cut hair and was singing (very off key) "can't break the habit. Yeah! I've got to have it. Yeah! I'm what they call a love addict love addict."

She slid her way to the table and started working on something Charlie couldn't see. "Hello!" He called. "Hey you!" The castaway stated a little louder. "Maybe she can't hear me though the glass" He thought out loud. He must have said it loud enough and between songs because she pressed a button on the mp3 player. Spun around and looked at Charlie with two very silver eyes before screaming.

"What are you doing awake?" She asked in a panicked tone. "O no o no o no!" She mumbled as she walked to Charlie's case and flipped a switch. "Who are you?" The bound bassist asked as the girl with silver eyes steadied him intently. She took a deep breath before responding "My name's Carman Mount." "I'm not going to hurt you." "Hot do you feel Mr. Pace?"

Charlie had never gotten use to how people he never met knew his name, not even when he was in Drive Shaft. It was especially creepy when that person was not asking for his autograph but how he felt. "Umm I have a headache… a bad headache" "Well that was expected, but I think I might have something to help that." Carman said as she walked to a cabinet and pull out a bottle of pills then a bottle of water.

Charlie had been hesitant to take even the mildest of painkillers after all that had happened to him with that sort of stuff. Still his head was going to explode if he didn't get something for the pain. "I can't take it with these arm restraints on" He pointed out. Carman eyed him as if she was looking for some anteater motive then replied. "I'm not letting you out of those 'cause I know that I won't be able to put you back in and with some of the stuff I'm going to tell you I'm pretty sure you'll kill me if you're loose."

Before any of you say. "Family Force 5's album wasn't out at the time this should be going on." I know that and I don't really care.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter III

Carman shoved the pill in Charlie's mouth and said. "Sorry, this is going to hurt." Charlie then felt the jab of a needle in his stomach and looked down to see a container quickly filling with blood. "Why on earth…" Charlie began to ask but was quieted by a finger. "No questions now." Carman said. With that she walked to a door but before going though it she looked at Charlie with a stare that made him feel like she could look into his soul and said "Be careful when you use that expression, it doesn't apply when you're not on Earth."

When she left Charlie's thoughts bounced around like overly enthusiastic Japanese people playing pig-pong. "What could a little girl possibly tell me that would make me want to take her life?" "Why is said girl alone in a hatch?" "Why don't they make these chairs more comfortable?" And most importantly "Why am I in this bumpy chair instead of dead?"

After an hour Carman reentered the room. She bit her lip and said, "I'm ready to tell you my story now." "I know you're confused right now but I'm going to have to bore you with a little back story before you can really understand what's going on." "My dad his name was Derek, use to be a scientist working with robotics. One day as he was leaving his work a man named Ben came up to him and asked him if he wanted to work for his company which he called Dharma. He said no he had a family to support and could work that far away."

"One week later I was in a car wreck, a bad one. My dad was driving me home and some drunk teen rammed him. I lost most of my left arm, fragments of glass got in my eyes so they had to take them out and on top of that I went into a coma. Most doctors said I was never going to wake up. I was ten at the time."

Her voice remained monotone but something within her eyes made it apparent that it was hard telling Charlie these things. "My parent's relationship was unstable. I was really the only thing holding them together. This was a way for my mom to get out. I haven't seen her since I crashed."

A week or two later Ben paid him another visit said he could help me if he brought me to his little island lab. Promised him he could left after he was done. Dad really cared about me and if this even had the slightest possibility of working he had to go. Poor dad, he was an idiot to trust him."

"Dad got here and immediately got to work, all the other people here had no chance of keeping up with him. He only stopped to eat and sleep sometimes not even then." She scratched a spot on her arm, "this was the result." Charlie stared at her arm, not believing what he was seeing.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter IV

The skin pulled away and beneath was not flesh and blood but tightly joined mechanical devices. "The eyes are like that too but it's a little harder to replace the stuff you rip off from up there," Said Carman, smiling for the first time at the look of disbelieve on Charlie's face.

"They attached the ligament and eyes though a very compacted surgery including placing that included ejecting super small computers into my head. Those happened to have the side effect of opening unused sections of the brain giving me a photographic memory along with other uninteresting things. They also woke me up from my coma. Love those things!"

"After that I had to go though three and a half months of physical therapy and of course a battery of very complicated tests and scans every single day. My dad came back to reality at that point and wanted to off of the island as soon as possible. He kept pestering Ben (who oddly was the only person he had seen on the island) "to let me go" as he put it, sounds a bit like Moses doesn't he?"

"But surprise surprise Ben kept asking for more time. So Papa Smurf decides that he doesn't want Mad-Scientist Smurf messing with Baby Smurf anymore and makes some "extra special super small computers" that block certain passages in the brain and make M.S.S. forget that he ever had Baby Smurf. But like all brilliant plans something goes wrong and the small computers mess up and turn in to what you call "The Black Smoke" that kills Papa Smurf and makes Ben even crazier."

"But the plan does work in the way that I am forgotten by all. So I wait for Ben to leave the island and occupy my time by designing more robotic limbs, making cool itsi-bitsi cameras, building my own computer, and listening to my dad's CDs. Then when Ben finally leaves I put my little cameras everywhere and just view the events that happen. Not really anything interesting, until a plane crashed."

"Then this whole dot on the globe became a prime-time drama. My favorite part was when you killed the polar bear. It was a game until my least favorite person in Ben's service kidnapped two of you "cast-a-ways" and hung one by their neck. Then I saw how many of you could die very very quickly. I didn't sleep for days making this."


	5. Chapter 5

A/N Thanks for reviewing all you who did. I know there are a lot of type-os. I'll try to check more thoroughly. It's supposed to be confusing. She has been down there by herself for years. But if you have any questions feel free to ask! I might let Charlie ask them so no other readers are confused. O and if anyone knows how to spell "nannit" (the scientific word for "tiny robots") I would be thrilled if they told me.

Chapter V

The teen walked over to the table in the center of the room. She spent a moment rummaging though the junk on it before retrieving a box that was about half the size of a VHS.

"It doesn't look like much but this thing is decades ahead of anything ever invented even these robotic limbs. It's creates a link between a human brain and a cyber robotic brain. This is the reason you aren't dead now."

"I was just finishing up on the fifth completely robotic shell when the hatch imploded. It was… horrible, blood everywhere, barely recognizable bodies with limbs missing. I don't have a weak stomach but I almost puked my guts out. I managed to get hold of myself and carried you one at a time to my hatch using a stretcher."

"I knew that your people didn't have the proper equipment to heal you. I was somehow able to stop the bleeding. You should have all died but only one did. Mr. Eko was too far gone. I did manage to get a good scan of his brain before he died. I thought it would be enough but the robotic body just ran out of commands one day and started malfunctioning. He would have become a monster killing anything in sight. So I sent the "Black Smoke" after him."

"Why Desmond kept seeing your death could be a side effect of the "little robots" in his system giving him visions. As for why something was trying to kill you, I have no idea. I just know that something was. There's no such thing as coincidence here. Something is at work. I don't know if they're from heaven, hell or just some sick person's game but it's not normal." Carman tilted her head indicating that she finished her speech.

"It's kind of funny you talking about normal after all that" Was the only thing Charlie could to say.

"It is isn't it?"

"How long have you been down here alone?"

"Five years. It doesn't feel that long though. I've had entertainment." She inclined her head toward a wall of Televisions.

Charlie now understood why she acted so strangely, why she could tell a story so personal and depressing without blinking an eye, the girl was probably as crazy as Danielle! This whole story had holes in it, things that made no sense. This had to be some plot by the Others, but what they could gain Charlie had no idea. If it was false how had he survived?

"Why didn't the machine version of me short-circuit as soon as I dived in to the ocean?

"The same reason it didn't each time you bathed or were out too long on a humid day, I came up with a water proof skin. It ran on organic fuel so you could just keep on eating and drinking like you normally would."

"Where did you get the materials to make all this?" Charlie inquired

"This facility was over stocked with all sorts of raw metal, wire, and stuff. So I used what I had and I snuck out when Ben was finding new recruits and stole stuff from other hatches."

"Do you have anything else to say before we end the question and answer session?"

The gaping plot holes were filling in but Charlie had one more question.

"How long has it been since I died"? It was strange how naturally he could say the words.

"It's been two days."

Charlie panicked "Everybody must think I'm really dead by now. They probably have already had my funeral!"

"They did, I've never liked to watch funerals but memorial services are much more interesting. You went out as a hero to them, saving them all by calling the boat. Even when Desmond told them that it wasn't Penny's, they rejoiced, getting out of here is all that's on their minds. But you didn't bring them freedom Charlie you brought captivity.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N Guess what?? Charlie's not in this chapter. I thought you might be interested in what's going down at the beach so… yeah

Chapter VI

Nothing had really changed. The waves still crashed on the beach, the birds still sang, her heart still beat. In fact, just two things were different and only one really mattered to Clair now. _He_ was gone forever, despite the promise _he_ had made never to be like Thomas _he_ had left, leaving her with another open wound.

She had taken _his_ hooded sweatshirt. Why, she was still trying to figure out. Clair had taken it from the small pile of _his_ things that weren't put in the memorial. She wore it with the hood up as she watched the waves erode the beach. Her things were already packed; Hurly had helped her with the task in those first horrible hours before the numbness had settled in.

She thought of the rescue that was less then a day away, if the people on the phone had been truthful. The hike back to the beach had timed itself perfectly with Desmond's arrival. Not many people had listened to him when he tried to tell them that it wasn't Penny's boat. They were all too happy about getting off the island to worry about who was taking them. In the end Desmond had walked off into the jungle alone.

Desmond told Clair what happened to _him_ before leaving, she made him tell. The words still bounced around in Clair's empty mind. "He did it to save you, sister. He knew he would die when he swam down there. Please come with me. He wouldn't have wanted you to get hurt."

She had felt like screaming at him "Didn't want me to get hurt?! Didn't _he_ know it would hurt me not having _him_ anymore?!" But she had kept quiet; she was in too much pain to say anything coherent. Now, she wondered if she had made the right decision. What if they were there to hurt her? Worse, what if they hurt Aaron?

Clair looked down at the small life in her hands. Aaron had just been fed and Clair thought this would be an opportune moment to go for a walk, just to get away from people who hardy cared if she was grieving. She rose, walked toward Sun, and in a slightly desperate voice asked if she could watch the infant for an hour. Sun agreed with a pitying look at the young mother.

Clair started to walk down the path that led to the caves, but remembered, when she was almost half way there, that Sawyer and a few other survivors had trekked down there because that's where he kept his stash of liquor and they wanted to celebrate. She changed course; wondering into a part of the jungle that she hadn't seen before. She regretted not taking advantage of having endless time to explore before. Everything was just so beautiful!

After fifteen minutes the downside of the trip started to reveal itself to Clair in the fact that there were no distractions. Her thoughts kept going back to _him_ no matter how hard she willed them not to. She pressed on; slower then before but she still made progress. She told herself that if she just focused on nature she would be fine.

She was wrong

The first tear slipped out of her eye before she could regain control, it was followed by another, and another, and another. Her face was filled with bitter, salty water. She sat on the damp ground and sobbed. The heart inside her had been broken many times but this had left her so shattered she wondered if she would ever heal.

Then she started to scream, no understandable words but a scream that still conveyed more of the pain she felt than a thousand pages filled with words.


End file.
